When I was still in Medical School, I visited my brother.  His daughter found me in the backyard, and announced she was sent to me because she had a rock up her nose!  I had no tools of my trade with me, and made do with a tweezers and extracted the rock.  Great success!  Now fast forward 6 years.  I am now a practicing family physician, and I told that tale to my mentor Emmett.  "That's not how you take a rock out of a kid's nose!" he said, and proceeded to pass doåwn to me his method.  It sounded hilarious and clever, and I hoped I'd get the chance to use it.  I did.  ONCE!

One day the next patient was a young boy with a bead up his nose.  Now, it's impossible to use a tweezers to grasp a bead:  the force just pushes it further in.  But I recalled my partner's method and said to the Mom, "Excuse me, I know what to do, but I have to go get something."  I went to the office lounge and brought back a tin of ground pepper.  I shook some into my palm, and told the boy to sniff hard at it.  He DID!  Then I put my finger on the opposite nostril and waited.  Beat.  As he inhaled deeply and shut his eyes I knew he was about to sneeze.  When he did, the bead shot out the opposite nostril and bounced on the floor.  His mother looked stunned, then laughed, the boy laughed, I laughed, and I said, "That was fabulous!  I enjoyed that so much this will be a no-charge visit!"  That's it.  A first vignette from a long career.  I have lots of those, not all funny.  And more to talk about!!

 

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